Updated 2 Nov 2006

The Major Oak of Sherwood Forest

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"Topsoil", BBC Radio Solent Feature


Transcription of an interview by BBC Radio Solent for broadcasting on program called "Topsoil", hosted by Pippa Greenwood. Interview by Rebecca Parker, 26 Sep 2006. Running time:7 mins 37 secs.

    At Bear Mead Plantation, Dorset 26 Sep 2006

    Rebecca Parker:
    What's over 800 years old, 52 ft high, weighs approximately 23 tons and has a waist line of 35 feet? You can make your own jokes up. But I am actually talking about the Major Oak in Sherwood. John Palmer and his wife Rosie were so enamoured by the Major Oak that they decided to plant its children somewhere in a field in Dorset. John, Hello, just tell me why the Major Oak has such a special place in your heart.

    John Palmer:
    Well, I was brought up in Worksop, which is only just a bit North of Sherwood Forest. And my parents used to take me down to see the Major Oak occasionally and I don't know, it just fascinated me, I was just amazed it could be so old and then we sort of forgot about it and I moved down to here in Dorset and I met Rosie and everything went happily, and then I thought, lets go for a holiday in Raasay, which is a little island in the Outer Hebrides, and there we saw a man trying to grow a whole lot of trees from acorns in his back garden, and I thought, that a good idea, why don't we try that? That was the idea, that was 1996. In the year 2000 I thought, what can I do to celebrate the year 2000. I know, go to England's most famous tree, The Major Oak in Sherwood Forest, and get 500 acorns. So we did that, and brought them back, put them into 3-inch pots. So we had 500 3-inch pots in our back garden, which is only tiny, and we put those into 5-inch pots, and then once again potted them up into 10-litre pots, and we were were getting a bit worried by then, we thought, what the heck are we going to do with them, and then just by sheer luck we heard about an auction selling land, only 2 miles from where we live, and nobody else bid, can you believe it. And we got 26 acres, 5 fields, so we donated one of them to the idea of this plantation, to plant our 300 oak trees in.

    Rebecca:
    You've done something very unique, you've found a bit of land that developers can't build on.

    John:
    Yes, so its the river, that's our biggest friend, that keeps the developers away

    Rebecca:
    John, did you have any background in horticulture or agriculture, I mean, how did you go about planting the acorns, or what you were doing.

    John:
    We've had to learn everything from scratch, I was an engineer when I was at work, I'm now retired, suddenly we've got plenty of time but we had zero knowledge and we just had to pick it up, learn by our mistakes and so on. And the main problems were deer, so we had to build a deer fence, and field voles. And field voles were a real problem, we lost about 25 trees by being chopped down, just like beavers would; we found them horizontal.

    Rebecca:
    Really?

    John:
    Yes, so we got 2 kestrel boxes, and 2 owl boxes in a nearby field...

    Rebecca:
    Right.

    John:
    ...and hoped they would keep them down a bit, on top of that we got rid of the mulch mats. Now, we made the mistake of putting mulch mats round each of the 300 trees, and that proved to be a mistake with a capital 'M', because the field voles just loved the mulch mats, they nested under them...

    Rebecca:
    Oh, no...

    John:
    ...they brought up more little voles inside, and, when they were bored they just gnawed the trees. So we had to get rid of all the expensive mulch mats. Then we had to make a bare earth 1 metre square round each tree, then we have to hoe them about every 10 days, all 300 trees.

    Rebecca:
    That's a lot of work, isn't it?

    John:
    It is, but its something that we can do. Its not too bad, it gives us a bit of exercise, and it seems to work.

    Rebecca:
    So, you planted the acorns in pots at home. How long were they at home for, before they came to the field here?

    John:
    From 2000, October 2000, when they were still acorns and we started planting them early 2004.

    Rebecca:
    And you kept them outdoors all that time.

    John:
    Oh yes. They got watered... Imagine watering 300 trees, twice a day sometimes.

    Rebecca:
    Did you ever go on holiday over that period?

    John:
    Yes, we did, and that's what we were very worried about. We used to go up to the Outer Hebrides, at least a month a year, and of course, when you come back, you are right back to square one again. So, you've got to have a good neighbour, and we've got a good neighbour, and Trevor's been and watered them all for us, I don't know what he thinks about the job, but he's done it anyway, we're very grateful to him.

    Rebecca:
    So, tell me about planting an Oak tree

    John:
    If you bring them up in a pot, you've obviously got to plant the whole pot, minus the pot, all the earth into a hole. First of all, you've got to dig the hole. And we've got about a foot of good earth, with very lush grass growing in it, and underneath that is clay. Underneath that is gravel, and digging through the clay is hard work. We've had younger men than me, I've seen them sweating, the sweat rolling down their face. I must mention the ITF, that stands for the International Tree Foundation, and they are a group in Dorset, and they are volunteers, thay go along and maintain trees. They came down, and they dug holes for us, and they helped us plant them, so they've been marvellous.

    Rebecca:
    John, you've got me down to the back of the field where you've got a line of willows, just tell me the quirky story behind them.

    John:
    Well, I had the opportunity of watching almost all of the Ashes series, and we had that marvellous win, we beat the Aussies, and it was marvellous, I really enjoyed watching that. And then I thought, well, we really ought to grow something to commemorate them, so we got some cuttings from some big local willows and we stuck them in pots and ..they grew, astonishing, but they needed an awful lot of water, and eventually, when they were large enough we brought the best 26 of them down here, and planted them in a row, and they've grown. And each of them has got a label on, and on the label is the name of one of the players. And also the, BBC published a rating, this was at the end of the Test, how well that particular player had done, with Andrew Flintoff at the top..

    Rebecca:
    I bet he was..

    John:
    .. and the various people I won't mention at the bottom...

    Rebecca:
    ...The Aussies!

    John:
    ...The Aussies at the bottom.

    Rebecca:
    We mentioned the Major Oak, that is over 800 years old. In 500 years time, when presumably you have shuffled off this mortal coil, and you look down at this patch of land, what would you like to see?

    John:
    I'd like to see the trees growing, healthily. I'd like to see somebody with a bit of love of what we're doing here looking after them. I'd like to see the trees get big enough that they start to throttle the grass, so the grass gets small. I mean, just down the river there, there's over half a million people living, and places like this will become very precious. There won't be many places where you can get away from cars and people, and just see the river and see the swans. Last year, we had a pair of swans and they had 12 cygnets, and they all grew up, and once when I had a visitor down here, we saw the 12 flying over us, it was the most amazing sight, it was better than Farnborough!

    Rebecca:
    ...And its free.

    John:
    And its free.

    Rebecca:
    Well, John and Rosie, you've been an inspiration to many. Thank you very much for your time this morning.